Art Studio Helps Adults With Disabilities Turn Their Passion Into A Career : NPR EdThis art studio works with adults who have a disability of some kind to make their art their employment. But all this takes money. And the new health care bill may impact the studio's funding.

Art Studio Helps Adults With Disabilities Turn Their Passion Into A Career

Jamila Rahimi works at Art Enables on a Monday afternoon. Rahimi, who has been working at the studio since 2006, creates the structure of her drawings with permanent marker before adding color.
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Jamila Rahimi works at Art Enables on a Monday afternoon. Rahimi, who has been working at the studio since 2006, creates the structure of her drawings with permanent marker before adding color.

Becky Harlan/NPR

Teenagers often have to wait years to do the things they want to do — drive, drink, vote. But for Mara Clawson, it was something different.

As a teen, Clawson loved making art — specifically drawing with pastels.

She and her parents kept in close touch with the gallery, and she submitted work to its exhibits as a special guest. After about 2,500 days, Clawson finally joined the ranks.

Meet some of the artists at Art Enables, an art studio, vocational program and gallery for artists with disabilities in Washington, D.C.

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Art Enables is a lot like any other arts studio — it has big windows and a paint-splattered sink, it's quiet enough to hear a paintbrush clink the sides of a water glass, and, of course, it's full of art.

Those things attracted Clawson, but she was also drawn to the artists who make up the studio — artists, like her, who have a disability of some kind.

Clawson, who still works in pastels but has branched out into digital art, was born with familial dysautonomia, a neurogenetic disorder that affects her autonomic nervous system.

A paint-splattered sink and open watercolor palette show signs of art in progress at Art Enables, a studio for people with disabilities that was founded in 2001. Artist Vanessa Monroe, who has been interested in art since childhood, concentrates as she paints a canvas at Art Enables. "We're just like family," she says about being part of the studio.
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A paint-splattered sink and open watercolor palette show signs of art in progress at Art Enables, a studio for people with disabilities that was founded in 2001. Artist Vanessa Monroe, who has been interested in art since childhood, concentrates as she paints a canvas at Art Enables. "We're just like family," she says about being part of the studio.

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"Our mission is to help artists build a career in the arts," says executive director Tony Brunswick. "Art Enables is not an art therapy program; it's not an arts education program. We're a professional studio."

Artists regularly exhibit work in the on-premises galleries, and visitors can purchase that art. When I visited, there were a number of red dots indicating "sold" on the works in the show. This is a business — artists earn income from the sales and work to build their personal brands.

Artists work in the Art Enables studio and gallery in Northeast Washington, D.C., on a Monday afternoon in June.
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Artists work in the Art Enables studio and gallery in Northeast Washington, D.C., on a Monday afternoon in June.

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When I first met Clawson, I could see the focus on art as a profession — she immediately handed me her business card. Shawn Payne, whose art depicts designs of high-fashion shoes, talked to me about his efforts to build up his social media presence. Nonja Tiller, a comic artist, showed me a children's book she is illustrating called The Ugly Puppy — a story about a dog with a disability who is taunted by other dogs. Once the book is finished, she hopes to sell copies at local stores.

"I'm trying to let people know who we are," Tiller said as she flipped through her illustrations. "We're humans; we're like anybody else."

Nonja Tiller holds one of her comics (left) illustrating two characters bullying another for being different. "I'm trying to let people know who we are," she says. "We're humans; we're like anybody else." This Super Mario Brothers-inspired boot was painted by Shawn Payne, whose work is influenced by fashion designers like Christian Louboutin. He hopes his work will include wearables one day.
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Nonja Tiller holds one of her comics (left) illustrating two characters bullying another for being different. "I'm trying to let people know who we are," she says. "We're humans; we're like anybody else." This Super Mario Brothers-inspired boot was painted by Shawn Payne, whose work is influenced by fashion designers like Christian Louboutin. He hopes his work will include wearables one day.

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But all this takes money. Art Enables (and programs like it across the country) aren't free to run. While artists do draw revenue from their work, there is a fee to participate in the program.

About half of the artists in Art Enables' studio were referred through the city's Department on Disability Services, which classifies the studio as an employment readiness program. When an artist joins Art Enables through DDS, about 70 percent of the cost is covered by a waiver program funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, while local funding covers the rest.

So for Art Enables and the artists who participate, the congressional debate over the health care bill is of particular interest. In its current state, the Republican bill would impose more than $700 billion worth of cuts to Medicaid over 10 years.

Inspired by an image of Jesus Christ's Last Judgment, artist Raymond Lewis creates a detailed ink drawing in the Art Enables studio.

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"We're dealing with a lot of uncertainty ... We're waiting to see which way things go," says Thomas Jared Morris, the deputy director for the Developmental Disabilities Administration at DDS. "Hopefully we're protecting the funding that we've been able to take advantage of over the years."

The cost of not funding Art Enables, though, could also be high.

"If folks didn't have vocational opportunities like this to participate in, it just means that they're not building the opportunity to build an independent income," says Brunswick. "It means that they're more dependent on supportive programs and services than they would otherwise be, which is why there's been a real push on vocational services."

Artist Imani Turner works on a watercolor piece inspired by the solar system. "Art creates opportunities for all of us to learn about ourselves," says Tony Brunswick, the executive director of Art Enables. "We really believe in the power of art."
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Artist Imani Turner works on a watercolor piece inspired by the solar system. "Art creates opportunities for all of us to learn about ourselves," says Tony Brunswick, the executive director of Art Enables. "We really believe in the power of art."

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Employment rates for folks with disabilities can be pretty low. In D.C., about 33 percent of working-age people with disabilities are employed, compared with about 79 percent of working-age people overall, according to a 2015 American Community Survey. Employers "still don't want to hire people with disabilities," says Morris, who has been in the field of human services for 14 years.

From his point of view, any exposure that highlights the talents of the long-marginalized community is good exposure.

When a passersby walk off of busy Rhode Island Avenue into Art Enables and fall in love with a hand-painted birdhouse or a sketch before learning that it was made by someone with a disability, that piece of art has the opportunity to broaden their perspective. In other words, allowing art and artists to do what they best.

"Outsider Art Inside the Beltway" reads the sign above the door to Art Enables, an art studio, gallery and vocational program in Northeast Washington, D.C., that works with artists who have disabilities.
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"Outsider Art Inside the Beltway" reads the sign above the door to Art Enables, an art studio, gallery and vocational program in Northeast Washington, D.C., that works with artists who have disabilities.